Unlocking phone question

Unlocking phone question

Hello,

I have a phone right now that is currently on the at&t prepaid card. I wanted to get it unlocked because I am going to go to another country for vacation. I have read the requirements on the at&t and wanted to know if I could get the phone unlocked after using my phone for 6 months on a prepaid card. This is the website that I read the information from: https://www.att.com/deviceunlock/client/en_US/

Re: Unlocking phone question

Thanks for the reply. I tried going to an AT&T store to ask if buying 6 months worth of prepaid card service will get the phone unlocked along with requesting for it to be unlocked. They said no, and I would need to open an account. Can anyone chime in? Do I need to open an account for 6 months or can I just use a prepaid card for 6 months and request for the phone to be unlocked.

Re: Unlocking phone question

You need to have your phone for 6 months before it can be unlocked, not just buy 6 months worth of service.

This is a user to user forum. I am a user, just like almost everyone else on the site.

Award for Community Excellence 2019 Achiever**The views and opinions expressed on this forum are purely my own. Any product claim, statistic, quote, or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider, or party.

Re: Unlocking phone question

I'm not quite sure I understand. So I need to own the phone for 6 months? How would they be able to check if I've owned the phone for 6 months? Unless you mean use the phone for 6 months on prepaid cards. Would I then be able to have it unlocked?

Re: Unlocking phone question

The prepaidf number that you will give when requesting the unlock needs to have been active for 6 months or more. The actual physical device doesn't have to be in your possession for that period of time. I've unlocked a freshly bought phone using the number that was in service for over a year once — they never asked me how long I have had the device for. I believe there's also a limited number of unlock requests per phone number within a period of time, but don't know how many, so it's not like you can go and buy a half a dozen phones and then unlock them all using a single phone number.

Award for Community Excellence 2019 Achiever**The views and opinions expressed on this forum are purely my own. Any product claim, statistic, quote, or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider, or party.

Re: Unlocking phone question

That doesnt mean you can't buy service ahead of time, but either way, you'll still need to wait.

If what dmapr is right about not having to have that exact device, that's great, but the wording implies otherwise.

-Alex

That unlock has been a few years ago, so I can't be 100% sure it hasn't changed. That time I first called and asked with the newly received phone's bundled number and was denied because it hasn't been active long enough. Called back again, used an old prepaid number and was immediately given the code.

Also, very recently I bought a Nokia 520 GoPhone and had it unlocked within 3 days of the purchase, although this time I used a postpaid line's number as I don't have any active GoPhones at the moment. Again, got the code without any trouble (submitted request online, got an email reply with the code in less than 2 days).

Award for Community Excellence 2019 Achiever**The views and opinions expressed on this forum are purely my own. Any product claim, statistic, quote, or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider, or party.